Sleep to Dream Her
by aixla
Summary: Oz struggles with reality ...


Title: Sleep to Dream Her  
Series: Yellow Flame  
Author: Ailie McFarland  
E-Mail: aixla@juno.com  
Rating: PG-13  
Summary: Oz gets all angsty and we get teary eyed.  
Archive: http://www.geocities.com/aixla/buffy.html  
Distribution: Oh! Well, if it helps at all, I'm gonna say Yes.  
Feedback: Hello, you've reached Ailie's ego. I'm not in right now, but if you'd leave me a  
message about this story I'd really appreciate it!  
Dedication: For Ems, cause she's letting me be the Queen! ;)  
Disclaimer: Oz and Willow obviously do not belong to me. If they did BTVS would be called "The  
Willow and Oz Show." Oh, and they lyrics aren't mine either. The song is "Sleep to Dream Her"  
by the Dave Matthews Band.  
  
  
Author's Note: Dave Matthews is such an amazing poet. He writes and sings in a way that pulls all the same heart strings that Willow and Oz do. From that comes  
the "Yellow Flame" series. Each will be a stand alone song fic with DMB lyrics. The Yellow  
Flame comes from "Tripping Billies" ... //We are all sitting Legs crossed round a fire My yellow  
flame she dances//  
  
Also, please note no Tara bashing intended. This is following Oz's train of thought once he  
has gone a little over the edge.  
  
  
**********  
  
//I know I'll miss her later  
Wish I could bend my love to hate her  
Wish I could be her creator  
To twist her arms now//  
  
E-flat, D, D-flat. It was an easy enough song as far as the bass line was concerned. Damn easy,  
in fact. The rest of the band had been rather surprised when Oz suggested they cover it. They  
rarely did covers do begin with, let alone one that was so different from their normal punkish  
style. But it did work nicely for some variety in a long set, and eventually the guys agreed  
to give it a shot.  
  
  
Time now found Oz and the band at a hole in the wall that tried to pass itself off at a bar.  
His days playing The Bronze with "Dingoes" seemed like the lap of luxury compared to this.  
Actually, in a way the falling plaster and chipped Formica did remind him of his old haunt  
... after a vampire attack, anyway. Plus it wasn't exactly the crowd their manager had promised;  
a few drunken men sprawled across the bar, several women desperately looking for love in very  
wrong places, and maybe a dozen bored college students lounging in the back.  
  
  
And yet Oz still scanned the crowd, hoping that this would be the day.  
  
//She stares up at the stars when  
The stars fell from her hair then  
I bent down to collect them  
And then she was gone//  
  
Still fresh in his mind was the day he had gone back to Sunnydale. The evening walk he had  
taken with his love. The way moonbeams played amongst stray strands of hair as Willow tilted  
her head to face the full moon. Starlight in her eyes and smile when she made the connection.  
Shadows crossing her delicate features when he attempted to ask her back into his life.  
  
  
Looking back now, he realized he had known. He had known the second she broke their embrace  
under that cursed moon. But that hadn't been his vision, his fantasy of the way that moment  
should have been. So he ignored it, and her. That ignorance had cost him everything.  
  
  
//Oh I sleep just to dream her  
I beg the night just to see her  
That my only love should be her  
Just to lie in her arms//  
  
In dreams alone did Oz's Willow now live. This Willow woke beside him every morning, mumbling  
about raspberry hats or some other such nonsense. She rambled when she was nervous, bit her  
lip when she was thinking naughty thoughts. She had taken him back with open arms that night  
so many years ago, and now sat in the audience of every club or bar he played in his mind.   
  
  
Waking hours brought pain of reality, but this song ... it seemed to offer some sort of hope.  
He recalled their last conversation somewhat selectively. "Part of me will always be waiting,"  
she had said. "If I round the corner and bump into you, I won't be surprised." That had been  
his Willow talking, not *hers.* His Willow would walk into one of these bars some day and see  
him, of that he was certain. She would hear this song and know, just know, that he had picked  
it out for her. The same way she had just known the right things to say and do before ... she  
would do the right thing again. She would live in his life as well as dreams.  
  
  
//Oh I came there to find out  
Find out she made up her mind  
My arms are all tied up  
To me she was blind//  
  
Sometimes Oz would come to his senses and realize that he was the blind one, not Willow. He  
was the one who refused reality both then and now. Those days were the worst. One or two of  
them had ended in excessive drinking and the rampaging destruction of motel property. Eventually  
he had decided denial was the best place to live ... and the rest of the band decided it was  
best to keep him there with whatever drugs they could find. So they kept him in his happy place,  
and he continued to play, although slightly sloppier than before.  
  
  
//This space between us  
Where wingless dreams fall earless  
Will you not bear me witness  
With your back to me now  
It seems so unnerving  
Yet still somehow deserving  
That she could hold my heart so tightly  
And still not see me here//  
  
With the end of the song rapidly approaching, Oz frantically scanned the crowd. In every girl  
there were little pieces of her. That one had her smile. Over there, bright blue eyes. And  
red hair being all the rage, any girl could be her from behind. But the total package wasn't  
there. It never was.  
  
  
She never was.  
  
//Oh I sleep just to dream her  
Beg the night just to see her  
That my only love should be her  
Just to lie in her arms//  
  
Derek had realized a long time ago that his bass player had his quirks, and learned to work  
around them. He glanced Oz's way to signal the end of the final chord and notice of the man's  
slighly frazzled expression. Time to end the set, give the poor guy something to calm and collect  
him before going back on stage. The habit was expensive to support, but he had to admit that  
Oz was a helluva player, and they needed him if they were gonna get anywhere.   
  
  
Oz never offered to talk about his past, and Derek never asked. It had been a subject of some  
debate during late night hotel room parties, when the melancholy basist had been passed out  
and alone in his own room. Whispers of women, sometimes of men. Maybe a crime committed in  
a moment of blind passion. Who knew? What Derek did know was that a demon lurked under that  
calm water, and he wasn't about to disturb it.  
  
  
//I know I'll miss her later  
I wish I could bend my love to hate her  
Wish I could be her creator  
To be the light in her eyes//  
  
END 


End file.
